Page 25 of Starting Over

Jenny could see from Annalise's strained expression just how much the quarrel between her and Jack must have upset her. The older woman had no wish to add to that upset but since fate had given her an opportunity to talk frankly to Annalise, Jenny felt that she had to take it—and not just for Jack's sake.

'Jack told me what happened,' Jenny began gently, frowning when she saw Annalise's white-faced shocked reaction.

'What's wrong?' she prompted her quietly.

'He promised me he wouldn't tell anyone,' Annalise burst out. She couldn't believe that Jack would lie to her, especially not about something so important. Her hands curled into two small frustrated fists of pain.

'It was private.... He had no right....' She stopped, fighting back her tears of shock and anger. She had been on an emotional see-saw all day, one minute euphoric and giddy with relief, the next half-afraid that she might have imagined it and that she was pregnant after all.

'Annalise, I'm his aunt,' Jenny reminded her firmly.

'His uncle Jon and I are his legal guardians. He might be over eighteen now but we still feel responsible for him. I'm sure that both of you consider yourselves to be grown-up but I think you know that it wasn't a very grown-up thing for Jack to do to come home from university in term time.'

"I didn't ask him to....' Annalise protested, sensing that Jenny was blaming her.

No doubt Jack's family would have preferred it if she hadn't said anything to him at all, if she had simply kept her shame and his unwanted baby out of his and their lives she decided bitterly.

'As it happens, everything has worked out for the best,' Jenny was continuing, 'but this must not happen again Annalise and we have told Jack so.'

'Again...' Annalise turned huge anguished eyes in Jenny's direction. Her gaze, full of bitterness and pain, caught at Jenny's heart, but she knew she had to stand firm.

'I know that both you and Jack consider yourselves to be in love,' Jenny continued carefully, 'but you're very young...and we'd hate to see either of you ruining your lives. It's vitally important that Jack gets his degree, Annalise. He'll have told you, I know, how much he wants to become a solicitor.'

Annalise knew what Jenny Crighton was telling her.

She was telling her that Jack's family did not want his life ruined by an unwanted pregnancy. She might be pretending to be equally concerned about her, but Annalise knew that she wasn't. How could she be? She meant nothing to the Crightons. She probably didn't mean all that much to Jack, either. How could she, when he had broken his promise to her and told his aunt?

Inwardly she writhed in hot shame at what his aunt must be thinking. Annalise's father was old-fashioned and he held old-fashioned views about girls who became pregnant outside marriage—views which he had made very plain to his daughter.

Annalise couldn't bear any more. She turned and hurried away, ignoring Jenny's anxious, 'Annalise...

please wait,' as the girl tore across the car park clutch-ing her shopping.

'Well, you made a fine mess of that,' Jenny berated herself as she watched her go. She hadn't meant to upset her, only to try to make her understand how vitally important it was that Jack did not repeat his behaviour of this week and come rushing home every time they had a falling-out.

Sighing, Jenny switched on the engine of her car.

CHAPTER NINE

'WHAT DO YOU mean—it's over?' Jack asked Annalise in bewilderment. He had been waiting for her for over half an hour and five minutes ago when she had eventually arrived she had sidestepped his embrace telling him flatly, 'I mean it's over,' Annalise reiterated sharply 'Over...finished...us...'

'Annalise,' Jack protested. 'Look, I know this pregnancy business upset you, but...' He tried to reach for her hand but Annalise shook her head and stepped back from him, the expression in her eyes cold and rejecting. She ached to challenge him about his broken promise to her but she was afraid that if she did she would break down in tears.

'I don't understand what's happening,' Jack told her quietly. 'I love you.'

How could she believe that? How could she believe anything he said to her now?

'I thought you loved me,' Jack coaxed. There was a hard lump in his throat, a sharp, savage pain in his heart. He couldn't understand what was happening or why.

Annalise looked away from him refusing to say anything. She was angry with him—Jack could see that.

But why? Because he had not been careful enough?

She couldn't reproach him any more for that than he did himself.

'Annalise, please...' He begged her.

'I don't want to talk about it any more,' Annalise told him. 'There isn't any point. I don't want to see you again, Jack...I just want you to leave me alone.'

She couldn't look at him. She knew if she did her control would break and she would burst into tears.

She hadn't known that life could hold this much pain.

She felt angry, abandoned, frightened, torn between hating Jack and wanting him to take her in his arms and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

But how could it be all right? He had lied to her, broken his promise to her—and even if he had not, Annalise knew that she could not go through the trauma she had just experienced again. Jack might have promised her that everything would be all right but right now, everything was far from all right.

Jack ached with remorse and love. His emotions burned the backs of his eyes, but he was a man now and men didn't cry.

Annalise was already moving away from him.

'Annalise...don't go....' he begged her, but she was ignoring him, hurrying back down the tow path.

He wanted to go after her and plead with her to give him a second chance but a couple were coming the other way walking towards him. The river path was too public a place to say what he wanted to say to her.

The frustration of not having the privacy he needed, of being looked on by others as being too young tore at his heart.

He loved Annalise and he would always love her.

He wasn't too young to know that.

But she didn't want him any more. She had told him so. She blamed him for the fear the thought of being pregnant had caused her and she blamed him, too, for not being able to protect her from it, Jack knew. And he knew it because he, too, felt the same way. He, too, blamed himself. In making love with her and not making sure she was properly protected he had been selfish and now he was paying for that selfishness. Annalise had stopped loving him.

Fiercely he knuckled the dampness from his eyes.

The last thing he wanted to do now was go back to university but he knew he had no choice. He had let Annalise down but he wasn't going to compound his sin by letting his aunt and uncle down, as well.

HALF-BLINDED by her own tears, Annalise ran down the river pat

h. It was over, finished, and she was glad...glad...she told herself fiercely. How could Jack have told his aunt what should have remained their own painful secret—and how could she even think about still loving him after what he had done?

'YOU'RE LOOKING very pensive,' Saul commented to Tullah. He had just arrived home from work to find her on her own in the sitting room standing staring into space. 'Something wrong?'

'Well, not wrong exactly, but...' Her forehead pleated in an anxious frown, Tullah proceeded to tell him what she had overheard. 'There was a message on the machine when I came home from Honor inviting us over there at the weekend.' She took a deep breath, 'I was thinking about Olivia....'

'Yes,' Saul agreed grimly.

'I got the impression that David wanted to tell her before the party but that he was afraid she would refuse to see him.'

'I'm sure she would,' Saul acknowledged.

'What do you think we should do?' Tullah asked him.

'What do you think we should do?' Saul retorted.

Tullah took a deep breath.

'Well, in her situation I'd want to know and...and before the news became public knowledge. I couldn't tell her. We get on well enough together but we aren't close. Not like...'

'Are you trying to say that you think I should tell her?' Saul asked her.

'Yes,' Tullah confirmed, 'And soon, Saul...like tonight....'

OLIVIA HAD SEEN the message light on her telephone bleeping when she walked into the house. For one idiotic moment she had actually thought that Caspar might have rung her and when, instead she had heard her father's voice, anger had overwhelmed her unwanted and very betraying disappointment.

'Olivia. I need to talk to you,' he had said. 'There's something—'

Olivia had cancelled the message without listening to any more.

Had Jon perhaps spoken to him suggesting that this might be a good time for him to get in touch with her...a time when she felt weak and vulnerable? Well, she had meant what she had said to Jenny. Her father was someone she would never, ever ask for help.

She had just given the girls their final good-night kisses and switched off their lights when Saul rang the front doorbell. Her pleasure at seeing him brought a happy sparkle to her eyes, lifting her mood. She wasn't foolish enough to really think that Saul wanted to resurrect their long-ago relationship, but she was woman enough and all too vulnerable enough to need to boost her ego with the attention of a handsome sexy man.

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